A computer user may express a mood, tone, emotion, etc., using a sequence of characters and/or cartoon-like stickers. Such an expression has been referred to as an emoticon, which is spawned from the words emotion and icon. The computer user might add an emoticon t-o a message, e.g., an instant message, to communicate a particular emotion or mood to the recipient of the message. By way of one example, to express a happy mood, the computer user might use the following character sequence: a colon followed by a hyphen followed by an open parenthesis, i.e. “:-)”. The user might use a symbol to express a mood, e.g., a “smiley-face” symbol consisting of two dots positioned above an upward curve inside a circle, e.g., , to express happiness. The computer user might use a cartoon-like sticker, e.g., a yellow-colored cartoonish smiley face to depict happiness.